The Poet and the Pendulum
by Lithoniel
Summary: Drabblefic, songfic  kinda . Excerpts of characters' lives before, during and after the Twilight Saga books. Rated for content


_Songfic, inspired by "The Poet and the Pendulum" by Nightwish._

_Disclaimer: I do not own the Twilight characters_

* * *

"_**I'm afraid, I'm so afraid…"**_

She rocks in the corner of her cell, in the dark, longing to be free, to escape…escape this torturous place.  
Why do they do this?  
It is not her fault she sees what is to come…  
Why is she here?  
She looks up and is blinded as the door to her cell opens and light streams through the opening to her deprived eyes.  
She screams at the pain, and then faints as another pain comes, hotter and sharper than any she has experienced before, even the electro-shock therapy she has been tortured by for years.  
The other pain, the worse pain, comes and sweeps all else away, leaving her in complete and utter darkness.

* * *

"_**Being raped again and again and again…"**_

She cries out as they torture her, hurting her with what should only be shared in love. She is bleeding, dying, as they all laugh and stagger off, drunken and unaware of the horror of the crime they have just committed. She just wants the pain to stop; to be relieved from her shame.  
Then there is the angel, lifting her and flying with her.  
Temporary relief from the pain that plagues her.  
The pain returns even worse than before, and she screams and screams as the fire burns through her veins.  
Please…someone stop the pain.

* * *

"_**I know I will die alone…"**_

She is falling, falling to put an end to the pain of her life. Her poor baby boy…she will join him soon.  
Sharp, searing agony appears as she lands, not dead as she had hoped.  
The pain is worse than that she has experienced in her now-gone life, and there is blackness as it controls her… searing, burning pain takes its place, worse than before, and she forces her eyes to open just once more as she hears a familiar, beloved voice.  
Warm, familiar golden eyes peer at her anxiously, and a soft velvet voice apologises as the pain is renewed, burning her inside.  
A faint smile flits across her features before she sinks into blackness to escape the pain.

"_**But loved."**_

* * *

"_**You live long enough to hear the sound of guns…"**_

He knows the pretty woman is dangerous; he can see it in her red eyes. But she is a beauty…pale, but a beauty…she bites and a fire appears.  
He knows, as the pain takes over, that he will not fight again.  
As he lay dying, the pain dimming his senses in its fire, he dimly hears the sound of gunshots in the distance…and screams as the agony truly presents itself.

* * *

"_**Long enough to find yourself screaming every night…"**_

She awakens with a scream, sobbing and clutching her chest as the pain tears at her heart.  
No…no, no, no, no-no-no…  
Her father hears her agonised cries but does not come, used to the screams he cannot soothe.  
Nothing soothes her pain now…nothing. It is a regular occurrence – normal.  
Still in pain, she drifts to sleep again…  
And awakens screaming again the next morning.

* * *

"_**Long enough to see your friends betray you…"**_

He is shocked at his long-time friend, shocked and sad.  
He stares, amazed at the truth of it all.  
It is true…she has betrayed him, her family and his family – her good friends. She has betrayed them all.  
Sadness fills him as he watches her.  
He has lived long enough now…to see a friend betray him and herself. It is as if a part of him dies…

* * *

"_**For years I've been strapped onto this altar…"**_

Sacrifice.  
All he is, all he has ever been, all he will ever be.  
A sacrifice.  
First his one love, his only child and now his only grandchild.  
Soon his sanity will follow the three beautiful women who have walked from his life and left him in pieces.  
He has only his sanity…it is all that remains. The rest he has sacrificed in one form or another.  
He is next – the next lamb on the altar.

* * *

"_**Now I have only three minutes and counting…"**_

He lays dying in a pool of his own blood as the bear towers over him. He guesses he has three minutes at most before his life is ended. Three minutes before the beast kills him…three minutes and counting.  
Suddenly, as the clock in the back of his mind counts down his final moments, the bear is gone, a beautiful angel in its place.  
The angel's face is agonised, and he is almost overcome by an urge to comfort her, this beautiful angel.  
But he cannot touch an angel, no matter how close, sad or beautiful…  
The angel lifts him in her cold thin arms, and they are flying.  
His eyes close.  
He is brought back from the brink by a searing pain worse than any bear-wound, and screams.  
The pain is intense…and lasts much longer than three minutes.

* * *

"_**I just wish the tide would catch me first…"**_

He contemplates killing the mutant spawn that has just killed its mother, the only woman he has ever loved in his short life. The spawn of his only love and his mortal – or immortal – enemy.  
Mind made up, he creeps towards the half-breed and the leech protecting it, mothering it.  
He is close enough to strike…before he can leap, tear, kill, the child turns familiar eyes to him and he is swept away in the tide of her deep brown gaze.  
He does not resist.

* * *

"_**And give me the death I've always longed for."**_

He asks his rival, his only true enemy and only true ally, for death should his only reason for life cease to be.  
It is the only thing he has wanted he has not received – that final death.  
He has always longed for that final death, and if his reason for existing leaves to travel into the void, he will follow. He will not be denied his right.  
But he does not need that final death…she lives.

* * *

"_**Save me!"**_

_**

* * *

**_

The Poet and the Pendulum

_**- Lyrics**_

_"W__hite Lands of Empathica"_

The end.  
The songwriter's dead.  
The blade fell upon him  
Taking him to the white lands  
Of Empathica  
Of Innocence  
Empathica  
Innocence

_"Home"_  
The dreamer and the wine  
Poet without a rhyme  
A widowed writer torn apart by chains of hell

One last perfect verse  
Is still the same old song  
Oh Christ how I hate what I have become

Take me home

Getaway, runaway, fly away  
Lead me astray to dreamer's hideaway  
I cannot cry 'cause the shoulder cries more  
I cannot die, I, a whore for the cold world  
Forgive me  
I have but two faces  
One for the world  
One for God  
Save me  
I cannot cry 'cause the shoulder cries more  
I cannot die, I, a whore for the cold world

My home was there 'n then  
Those meadows of heaven  
Adventure-filled days  
One with every smiling face

Please, no more words  
Thoughts from a severed head  
No more praise  
Tell me once my heart goes right

Take me home

Getaway, runaway, fly away  
Lead me astray to dreamer's hideaway  
I cannot cry 'cause the shoulder cries more  
I cannot die, I, a whore for the cold world  
Forgive me  
I have but two faces  
One for the world  
One for God  
Save me  
I cannot cry 'cause the shoulder cries more  
I cannot die, I, a whore for the cold world

_"The Pacific"_  
Sparkle my scenery  
With turquoise waterfall  
With beauty underneath  
The Ever Free

Tuck me in beneath the blue  
Beneath the pain, beneath the rain  
Goodnight kiss for a child in time  
Swaying blade my lullaby

On the shore we sat and hoped  
Under the same pale moon  
Whose guiding light chose you  
Chose you all

_**"I'm afraid. I'm so afraid.**__**  
**__**Being raped again, and again, and again**__**  
**__**I know I will die alone.**__**  
**__**But loved.**__**You live long enough to hear the sound of guns,  
**__**Long enough to find yourself screaming every night,  
**__**Long enough to see your friends betray you.**__**For years I've been strapped unto this altar.**__**  
**__**Now I only have 3 minutes and counting.**__**  
**__**I just wish the tide would catch me first**_

_**And give me a death I always longed for "**__  
_

_"Dark Passion Play"_  
2nd robber to the right of Christ  
Cut in half - infanticide  
The world will rejoice today  
As the crows feast on the rotting poet

Everyone must bury their own  
No pack to bury the heart of stone  
Now he's home in hell, serves him well  
Slain by the bell, tolling for his farewell

The morning dawned, upon his altar  
Remains of the dark passion play  
Performed by his friends without shame  
Spitting on his grave as they came

Getaway, runaway, fly away  
Lead me astray to dreamer's hideaway  
I cannot cry 'cause the shoulder cries more  
I cannot die, I, a whore for the cold world  
Forgive me  
I have but two faces  
One for the world  
One for God  
Save me  
I cannot cry 'cause the shoulder cries more  
I cannot die, I, a whore for the cold world

_"Today, in the year of our Lord 2005,__  
__Tuomas was called from the cares of the world.__  
__He stopped crying at the end of each beautiful day.__  
__The music he wrote had too long been without silence.__He was found naked and dead,__  
__With a smile in his face, a pen and 1000 pages of erased text."_

_**Save me!**_

_"Mother & Father"_  
Be still, my son  
You're home  
Oh when did you become so cold?  
The blade will keep on descending  
All you need is to feel my love

Search for beauty, find your shore  
Try to save them all, bleed no more  
You have such oceans within  
In the end  
I will always love you

_The beginning._

_

* * *

_

Characters (in order)

Alice (pre-Twilight)

Rosalie (pre-Twilight)

Esme (pre-Twilight)

Jasper (pre-Twilight)

Bella (New Moon)

Carlisle (Breaking Dawn)

Charlie (post Breaking Dawn)

Emmett (pre-Twilight)

Jacob (Breaking Dawn)

Edward (Breaking Dawn)

* * *

_So there you have it! Angsty and such, I know :)_

_Please review!_


End file.
